people-shaped shadows spilled out into the hall. He barged in, then drew up, forced to reassess.
Taelin lay practically atop a tattooed man Caliph had never seen. It was an exaggeration, but she was perched on the same divan, leaning parallel with him into the cushions, one of her legs draped over his mighty thigh. His arm was around her waist.
Dr. Baufent stood by a lamp whose maroon globes bloodied the room. She did not look happy.
There were other big men, like the one groping the priestess. Heavily tattooed greenish skins and coarse red braids erupted from them, unable to be contained by rich clothing. Cuff links, and black sleeves and silk ties strained but failed to tame the crew of wicked gentlemen. They glared at Caliph.
Their leader was obscured, barely discernable among the powerful angles of the room. He was huge and broad, a trapezoid flowing, hacked from bolts of luxurious cloth. Easily twice Caliph’s size, he looked down with fiery black eyes and said, “High King Howl. A pleasure to meet you.”
“I’d like an introduction,” said Caliph. It was a flat command leveled at Baufent.
She spluttered. She was not trained as an aide or a servant and must have found his order discomfiting. “Th- this is—”
“I am Ku’h,” said the huge man. He had a thick southern accent but his Trade was just fine. “We are glad you are feeling better. I am…” he seemed to lose his way for a moment “in charge … of the Great City of Bablemum.”
“In charge?” Caliph couldn’t hide his skepticism.
“The lord mayor is dead,” said Ku’h. “Only some of us are left.”
“Dead how?”
“The disease.”
“We know the Sslia brought you here,” said Ku’h.
The word surprised Caliph. He recognized it from more than Taelin’s drug counseling transcripts. It had also been in the journals Sena had given him.
“Sena came aboard while you were comatose,” Baufent said quietly, as if passing Caliph the facts which Ku’h had molested. “But she didn’t speak to us.”
“Sena spoke to me,” Taelin interjected happily.
Caliph didn’t look at Taelin. He kept his attention fixed on Baufent. The doctor rolled her eyes at Taelin’s comment. Then she continued. “Sena set the ship’s course before she left. We stopped here, last night.”
“The Sslia,” said Ku’h calmly.
Caliph turned to Bablemum’s makeshift magistrate. “Ku’h, can we talk? Privately?”
“Of course.” Ku’h smiled. There was something wrong with that smile. If his entire city had been wiped out by the same disease that had steamrolled Sandren, why did he seem so calm, in control, even amused? Why wasn’t he filthy and tired from fighting off silver-skinned plague victims and giant eel-men? Even more obvious, why wasn’t he sick?
Caliph gestured to the doorway through which he had entered the room. He didn’t know a thing about the ship’s layout and decided to take Ku’h aside in the only direction that wouldn’t make him feel lost.
Ku’h stepped into the darker hallway. When they were sufficiently alone, Caliph said, “There was an international conference scheduled in Sandren five days ago. We—”
“I know what happened,” said Ku’h. “I know how you came to be here.”
“So you know we’re following—”
“The Sslia,” said Ku’h.
Caliph didn’t want to give in. He didn’t want to accept that his world of metholinate trade, of meetings and treaties and signatures on paper was collapsing into a deep hole of esoteric words and occult legend. As much as he had wanted to escape the role of High King only days ago, he now very much wanted it back. He wanted all of it back, all the problems and threats and mincing tongues.
Those things were understandable.
“I’m following the woman who committed the crime. Who murdered all those people in Sandren.” It was all he had left to hold on to. The last rational piece of action he could take. Caliph realized this even as he said it. But now that it was out of his mouth, he also realized that it sounded crazy. If the plague was everywhere, if even the mighty city of Bablemum was a silent ruin, where would Sena’s case be tried? Were there any lawyers still alive? Judges? Did laws still exist? The world had changed under Caliph’s feet. He was falling and yet he was trying to ignore that fact.
The realization disturbed him. As if some mechanism in his head had finally snapped to, he wondered, maybe, whether it was time to start thinking in a new direction.
“She is in the city,” said Ku’h.
“Where?”
“With the Lua’groc.”
“The Lua’groc?”
The lewdness in Ku’h’s smile arose, no doubt, at Caliph’s expense. Ku’h pulled his white shirt out of his pants and lifted it to reveal his muscular sage-colored abdomen. There was an ugly black mark above his navel.
“We are the Cabal of Wights,” said Ku’h. “Or, as the witches of Mirayhr call us, the Willin Droul.”
Caliph sorted through everything he had read in Sena’s books. “The Lua’groc are one of the ancient races. But you don’t look like some kind of mon—”
“The Cabal is not an ethnic organization, King Howl. We come from every region of the continent. Most of us do not have Lua’groc blood in our veins.”
“So you have medicine? You look healthy.”
“We wear the Hilid Mark,” said Ku’h. He gestured to his waist, which was not far below Caliph’s eye-level. “It is a ward. We are protected.”
“So you’re with them? The creatures spreading the disease?”
“Yes.”
Here was the enemy. One face of it at least. And Caliph felt unarmed. There was no way he could fight this man. And what good would it do? Rather, this was an opportunity to understand, finally, what had happened.
“Why are you with them? Why do you want all of this to happen?”
Ku’h laughed, a sound that came from miles deep. “You expect poor, ignorant people to join a cult. People without hope. But that’s not the case, King Howl.
“The affluent and powerful can also become disillusioned. The endless pursuit of money, fame, comfort, power? The desire for a sense of accomplishment before you die? Don’t you feel it too?”
Caliph rocked back on his heels. “You don’t think providing government for peoples’ well being is worthwhile? You don’t think doctors—”
“In the end,” said Ku’h, “no matter who you are, or what you did, self-sacrifice included, all you’ve done is rubbed yourself in an effort to feel special—to feel good.
“Which is why I joined the Cabal of Wights,
“And what’s the truth?” Caliph asked.
“Change is truth.”
“You joined an organization that backs change? That’s not so unusual. But why the disease? Why—”
“Why paint with yellow over blue?” Ku’h interrupted. “The answer is that you prefer it. That’s all there is. Change. Not change with a purpose. Just change. That’s why the Lua’groc laugh in the face of their own death. It’s a beautiful, empowering thing: to not care. To stand in awe and watch the universe devolve.”
Was this true? Was this what Sena believed? Was she really with these psychopaths? Some kind of prophet flying at their head? Leading them? Caliph couldn’t believe it.
And yet … she had killed all those people at Sandren.
He felt the planet crack in half and all the warm logic pour out of its center, leaving the world cold and empty. Maybe there were no courtrooms left. Maybe there were no crimes that could be rationally punished. But there was still one thing Caliph could do. He could find Sena and he could ask her, to her face,
“You worship Sen … er, the Sslia?” asked Caliph.
“The Sslia is the avatar of change. We embrace that change. But the Sslia is also a servant, an attendant.
